February 16, 2011

Monster Blueprints

Thumbnails, storyboards, pre-viz (pre-visualization)... the art of translating the script into a quick and inexpensive vehicle to depict the written word.

While I was writing this script, I would do page breakdowns to determine the amount of info I wanted to have per page. This script was a little special in that it has these self-contained scenes that I wanted to fit per page. I knew going into this project that the finished comic pages were going to be of a 3x3 layout... up to a maximum of 9 panels per page. I also have limited myself to one splash page per issue... which would be the first page of each.

Using non-photo blue pencil, I draw out tight thumbnails... full anatomy, backgrounds, gestures... that are about 1/4 scale of the final comic page. Some scenes are visualized in 3DS... mostly when it involves structural logistics. All the word ballons are added for spacing/composition and dialog padding. I'm using the Joe Kubert font from Comic Book Fonts and I make my own ballons using the Photoshop ellipse and pen tools.

Here are the first 6 thumbnailed pages to the first issue. Click each to view a larger image.